Eternities of Darkness: A Prequel
by vociferate
Summary: "Forgive me. I did it, but it wasn't me'." What happened when Walter Sullivan took his own journey through Silent Hill before the 21 Sacraments? Follow him through the misty streets of his guilt and into the abyss.
1. Chapter 1

Eternities of Darkness: A Prequel

_"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Nietzche_

**A/N**

**Ever since playing Silent Hill 2 I've wondered what happened when Walter Sullivan went through his journey through SH. His mysterious tombstone in the abyss was filled, so he must have completed his journey. After an astonishing lack of fanfiction about this subject I thought to myself that I'd take a stab at it. Remember, this is purely a work of fanfiction and various (often ambiguous) facts will probably be changed in order to make the story flow. This is just a short prologue as it is exam period right now, but I'm fairly sure I know where I'm headed with this and hope to finish it by the end of summer!**

**Thanks for reading!**

**P.S. - I am English, but as this is an American-English game I'll try and use American-English as often as possible. If I make any glaring errors don't hesitate to correct me, it's the only way I'll learn!**

* * *

><p>Billy Locane was nervous. Momma always told him two things before he went out to play: look after his little sister, Miri, and don't stray too far from the house.<p>

He was such a good boy. When Miri said she thought she saw a puppy running off towards the woods near their backyard, he had repeated Momma's favourite mantra. But then Miri had sulked, jutting out her petal pink bottom lip with tears dewing on her eyelashes. Billy couldn't say no to Miri.

They hadn't run too far, barely into the centre of the woods. It was close enough for them to be spotted.

'Miri, I don't think we should go much further. Momma'll be cross,' Billy said, futily grabbing for Miriam's pudgy hand. She giggled and slipped away.

'The puppy, Billy! He'll be sad!'

Billy was about to counter her argument by pointing out that they hadn't spotted the puppy since it first bounded into the woods when a twig snapped in front them.

'Puppy!' Miri squealed. She took off deeper into the woods faster than Billy could warn her from doing so and before Billy managed to start running himself he heard her wail.

Billy's heart sank in his chest as he sped towards the source of the sound, tripping over tree roots. Stinging nettles slapped against his legs.

Billy Locane was_ such _a good boy.

He spotted Miri standing stock still in a small clearing. She was crying, and there was a large man stooping down and talking to her. Billy couldn't understand why she was crying, the man though tall had the kindest face he had ever seen. Almost as kind as Momma.

'Miri...' Billy called, stepping to join his twin.

'Billy, don't!'

Billy Locane _was_ such a good boy, but even good boys don't always listen.

As the kind man's axe cleaved Billy's tiny head from his shoulders, he couldn't help but realise why Momma always said she knew best.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1**

Josie's Cafe was a small greasy-spoon situated on the road between Brahms and Silent Hill. Barely big enough to hold a coach-load of people, the Cafe clung to the side of the rest-stop and gas station like a gangrenous thumb.

It was a scorching hot July afternoon. Against his better judgement, Walter had decided to stop off in the Cafe to take a break from the long walk back from the Locane's. He desperately needed a drink, and had found a few quarters in Billy's dungaree pocket. A pang of guilt shot through him as he handed the meagre change to the eponymous Josie in exchange for a cherry soda. He hoped Mother would understand.

Walter sat in a booth directly beneath the AC vent. He had already shed his heavy top shirt and sweat pooled in the hair in his underarms. He had cut his own hair the day before last and the dirty blonde strands hung around his ears. The cafe was wonderfully shaded from the angry midday sun and Walter was grateful to have found the place.

'Cherry soda, sugar?' Josie broke his reverie with her red-lipsticked grin.

'Oh, thank you,' Walter just wanted the woman to leave. She was a wonderfully chatty lady, which unfortunately for Walter meant that she would strike up a small conversation with every customer she served. Such exchanges of small talk made Walter's stomach flutter into his throat with panic; he just wasn't made to talk to people.

'Can I get you anything else, hun?' Josie threw about terms of endearment as if they were soon to be illegalised.

'Actually, I...um, I was wondering if you knew where the nearest bus stop was...?' Walter fiddled inadequately with the already soggy napkin that collected the condensation from the soda glass.

'I ain't sure, sweetie, certainly ain't one around here for a couple of miles either way. All depends on where you gotta be,' she smiled, Walter noticed that some of her lipstick had rubbed onto her front tooth.

With one last small smile, Josie turned her back and waddled on her wedged sandals through the port-hole windowed door that lead to the kitchen.

Walter felt like sighing, but decided it wasn't worth his energy. He felt lethargic in this heat, and the prospect of walking any farther to find a bus home while carrying his rucksack made him want to crawl under the table and never re-emerge. Instead, he reached into his jean pocket and fingered the rag-doll that he kept there. Something about the crudely made toy never failed to calm him down. It reminded him of Mother.

The Cafe remained silent as Walter chewed on his straw, the glass of soda already emptied. The only sounds that reached Walter's ears was the noise of Josie's gum popping in her mouth and the whirr of the AC. His brain slowly began to switch off, obeying his body's request to curl up, relax and drift off. His eyes had just slipped shut when Josie let out an excited caw.

'Oh my lord! The Lonely Hearts murderer is back!'

The noise of the television crackled into life as Josie turned up the volume for the whole diner to hear. The local news station reporter was on the screen, his face so pale from what had been found he could be a paper cut-out.

'The Lonely Hearts murderer' the media had chosen to call him. According to the newspapers,the myth was that a lonely middle-aged man was carving out others hearts because his own had been broken long ago. One small local paper had even reported that he may be a ghost, avenging his lover's death. The lack of insight made Walter want to vomit, but he was grateful for the media's inaccuracy.

He could only feel a small amount of surprise at the speediness of the report. He dimly realised in the back of his mind that he probably could of hidden the bodies far better than he had tried; he had wanted to leave and go home and get the hearts into the bigger cooler in his small apartment. The Locane's lived on the very outskirts of Silent Hill, and although the woods were hard to reach some nature walkers had stumbled across little Billy and Miriam while bird watching.

Walter stood on his jellied legs and tied his top shirt around his waist. Shouldering his rucksack, he nodded a fair-well to Josie and slipped out of the front door.

Walter was hit immediately with a scorching wall of dry heat. Any resolve to just leave and walk the next few miles to the bus stop left as quickly as it had formed and Walter felt the world tilt around in dizzy circles. He hadn't eaten since Tuesday, all his money was saved so that he could travel to see Mother or to collect the ingredients for the ritual. Walter took a few shambling steps forward before pitching over; his steel-toed boots catching a rock embedded in the dusty ground.

Before he could even prepare himself for the juddering contact with the ground he felt himself being caught by a giant.

'Hey, buddy. You don't look so good,' the giant rumbled, easing Walter to the ground.

Walter blinked up, his eyes fogging. It wasn't a giant after all, but a large man in a blue bus driver's uniform.

'Here,' the bus driver, _William_ his tag read, handed Walter a bottle of water. He took it gratefully and drained it in three big chugs.

'What're you doing here? You're pretty far from a bus stop you know,' William held a large hand to Walter's skinny back to keep him steady.

'I know...You, erm...' Walter wanted to ask for a pity lift, at least into Brahms to catch a bus from there, but his tongue felt twice as big as usual from dehydration and the words caught in his dry throat.

'You wanna lift? Eh? Well sure, the gang are just in the rest-stop right now but we'll be heading off again in a few minutes,' William's smile eclipsed his face.

'Are you sure that's ok?' Walter asked, taking William's hand and dragging himself to his feet. The world swam and danced.

'I couldn't leave you here, buddy. They say there's things that'll eat your flesh around these parts. You'd be easy pickin's.'

Walter thought he should feel mildly offended by this, though in his present state it was amazing he had ever managed to collect the last two hearts. Guilt sang in his brain as he remembered the two tiny hearts crammed in the small cooler inside his rucksack, next to his hand axe and surgeon's tools.

'Thank you,' he whispered. He felt terrifically small.

'Coach is this way, c'mon,' William wrapped a bulky arm around Walter's bony shoulders and lead him to the parking lot around the back where the large white bus was parked.

'Erm, which way are you headed?' Walter hoped it wasn't Silent Hill, there would be police officers crawling in every nook and cranny hoping to flush out the Lonely Hearts Murderer.

'Don't you worry, buddy. We're headed exactly where you need to go,' William's smile stretched his face again, the chubby stubbled cheek glistening with sweat. Walter felt a small chill run down his spine.

'C'mon, bud. Everyones back on now. Time to go!'

William gently pushed the smaller man up the coach steps. The coach was sparsely populated, an old lady by the very front was already falling asleep. Walter took a seat at the back of the bus; his rucksack fell into the seat next to him with a soft _thump-thump._

_'Alright everyone! Buckle up and get comfortable because we're off on the road again. We're almost there now, folks! Thank you all for choosing Destiny Coaches, getting you to where you need to go since 1980!'_

As the engine roared into life Walter felt the lethargy overwhelm him once more. The vibrations of the coach stoked the fog in his brain once more, and as his eyelids flickered in a vain attempt to keep awake, Walter could swear that Billy and Miriam were sat at the front of the coach.

Walter awoke feeling horrifically cold.

He felt as if he had been plunged into ice water head first. His teeth chattered in his skull, causing an infected molar to crack and crumble slightly under the pressure. Walter clasped a grubby hand to his right cheek and let out a low moan.

Opening his eyes fully, Walter found himself alone on the back seat of the coach. Everything was an odd shade of grey, and although the coach was definitely not new when he had first boarded it the seat cushions were now torn and frayed, rust coating every metal surface he could see. There was no sign of luggage in the over-head compartments nor the bottles and food wrappers that had decorated the coach he remembered from the rest-stop.

The windows were covered in a thin layer of grime that made Walter's sub-concious tremble. He swallowed down the feeling, noting that he no longer felt the extreme fatigue that had plagued him ever since he had cleaved the twins. He reached next to him to grab his backpack but his hand only met air and the stubbled cloth of the seat.

His backpack was missing.

Walter's heart beat a nervous tattoo against his ribcage.

'_Shit_,' Walter rarely swore, it was a sin.

He dropped to his knees on the dusty aisle and began to search under the seats in the vain hope it had just rolled away. There was very little light in the bus, leaving Walter to grope blindly under the seats.

He completed his futile search all the way up to the front of the bus. Tears threatened to spill down his cheeks. _How could I be so careless?_

Scrubbing at his face with the back of his arm, he stood and searched the drivers seat. There was a note pinned to the wheel. Walter picked it up carefully, the ink smudged under his thumb.

_Hey Buddy!_

_Told ya I'd get you exactly where you need to be._

_There's a present for you at Neeley's Bar. I've left you a map in the glovebox if you need it. _

_P.S. Some guy ran off with your backpack. I tried to chase after him but he was too fast. _

_Take care,_

_William._

Walter scanned the note three times before pocketing it in his jeans. Checking the glovebox he found a folded map of Silent Hill. Neeley's Bar had been circled in sloppy red ink. A smaller 'x' on Lindsey St. indicated where the coach was parked.

_How did the coach get all the way to Silent Hill and onto Lindsey street so quickly? I only closed my eyes for a moment..._

Walter checked his watch, it had stopped at twelve.

'Weird...' he mumbled, raising it to his ear. It was silent. The battery was completely dead.

_It was two thirty in the afternoon when I left that diner, I'm sure of it. Did we park and I slept through the night until midday?_

Keeping the map open, Walter disembarked the bus. Sure enough, he was on Lindsey St, the back of Cafe Texan was visible over the battered wooden fence. Getting his bearings straight, Walter turned right and set off down the street.

It was deathly silent here. There was a light fog which clung to buildings and caused everything to appear grey and lifeless. The decay has spread from the bus and into the streets; Silent Hill was a ghost town.

Walter frowned as he turned onto Saunders Street. It was the height of tourist season and yet he couldn't hear a single car. None of the stores he passed appeared to be open; they were dusty and their signs browned. It was as if Silent Hill's tourist sector had been sealed off and forgotten about.

The short walk up to Bar Neeleys was wholly uneventful; exactly what troubled Walter. There should be policemen every where, questioning the naive tourists on whether they had seen anyone suspicious in town. At the very least, he should have bumped into the odd tourist who vacationed here to taste the famous Toluca Lake Homebrew Neeley's Bar stocked. The silence only held promises of trouble to come.

The windows of Neeley's Bar were covered in yellowed newspapers, effectively blocking out the meagre grey light that permeated the streets. Walter cupped his hands and tried to peer through the grubby window in the door, but was met with darkness.

The door opened smoothly despite its rusted handle.

_The hinges must have recently been oiled for it to open like that..._

This thought was quickly vanquished as he stepped into the bar proper and allowed the door to thud closed behind him. The air inside the bar was practically unbreathable. It swam with dust motes, causing Walter to cough as they assaulted his nose. He clamped a sleeved hand over his nose in an attempt to filter out the stale air.

_No one's been here for a long while._

As his coughing fit slowly subsided, he noticed a small beam of light that shone across the floor before being eclipsed by the darkness of the bar. Stepping toward it, his eyes focused in the dim light; his present lay on the bar itself.

It was a small pocket flashlight. Big enough to fit in the top pocket of his shirt; a small clip ensured it would stay put. As he fastened it to the thick cloth he noticed another small note where the flashlight had stood. It was the only other thing in the bar beside the flashlight that was not covered in dust.

_Take this light but use it sparingly,_

_those things are everywhere._

_They feed on the flesh of the guilty._

_I covered up the windows but I can still_

_hear them outside._

_Those who dare to walk in the fog_

_do not always make it out alive._

_I haven't seen Eric in days..._

_'Those things'..._Walter thought, pocketing the note next to the one he had gotten from William, _William said there were monsters..._

Any ordinary man would scoff at these claims, but Walter was a man of faith. He knew God's whims and fancies. He would have to be careful.

_I need to get those hearts back so I can bring Mother home. _

Walter checked the sturdiness of the flashlight in his pocket once more before going on to check the rest of the bar for something to indicate where everyone in the town had gone. His newly acquired flashlight meant that he could now see much better, although the beam only reached about two foot in front of him. Every single bottle was empty aside from a family of spiders living in an old whiskey bottle. Walter couldn't help but shudder at the sight of the family crawling over one another; the sight of insects always left him panicked.

The doors to the restrooms were both locked from the inside and Walter saw no need to test them any further. The only other door was marked _Basement_. Walter supposed that someone could be hiding from whatever was threatening the town and rattled the door.

_Another locked door. Weird._

As he turned to leave, a small voice called out from behind the locked door.

'Hello?'

Walter froze.

'Are you actually talking to me?'

Walter turned to face the door. The voice sounded young. He crept back toward the door, his heavy boots causing the rotten wooden floor to creak despite his small frame.

'Are you alright in there?' he asked, placing a palm on the door. The wood was oddly cold despite the stale warmth of the bar.

'Safer in here than out there with you,' replied the voice curtly.

'Are you the one who wrote the note?' Walter felt the sudden urge to run and get out of the Bar as quickly as he could.

'No, but he is down here. _They_ got him.'

Walter was puzzled, 'The monsters?'

'You're a man of faith.'

'Y-yes.'

'But you're a sinner.'

'Hey!'

'But you _are._ Justify it however you like, you have sinned against your own kind. You know She will punish the guilty who cause suffering in her world.'

Walter's bowels turned.

'I don't have to 'justify' myself to you. You're a child,' he responded, wounded.

'Exactly, and we all know how you deal with them, Walter,' sang the voice.

The child began to laugh, the sound reaching painful levels after his ears had grown used to the stone silence. Walter practically tripped over his feet as he backed away from the door and fled out of the Bar and back onto the street.

The once silent streets now seemed to echo with laughter and what sounded to Walter like prayers. The low toned chanting coupled with the childish laughter forced Walter to clamp his hands over his ears as it oppressively bore down upon him from all sides. Tears bloomed in his eyes as the sounds grew so close that he could feel warm breath on the back of his neck.

And just like that, the noises stopped.

Walter's ears rang shrilly in the aftermath of the assault. He felt embarrassed to be reminded of how easily he could be brought to tears under pressure; it was a trait he had hoped to have conquered by twenty-four. The streets were just as quiet as they had been before he entered Neeley's Bar and Walter now had no idea what to do.

_I need to get out of here, I need to find the hearts for Mother._

Walter dug out the map from his pocket and opened it once more. William's note had only mentioned that he had seen a stranger run off with his backpack. Silent Hill was far too large to wander about on foot with no destination. Walter couldn't even begin to guess where the stranger had run off to.

_I suppose he could have headed to the residential area, but that would take me a good hour to walk all the way there from the tourist sector, _Walter mused as he studied the map intently. Finding a lid-less blue biro in his back pocket, he clumsily crossed off Neeley's Bar on the map. Making lists and crossing them off as he completed them had always made him feel more relaxed and organized when he had a job to do.

The clatter of a trash-can lid hitting the ground echoed down the street, causing Walter to snap his neck painfully as he rose his head in panic. Despite the fog that permeated the area he could briefly see the figure of someone running down Neeley St. Although he could not see well, he was sure the figure was wearing his backpack.

'_Hey!' _he shouted and tore off down the street in the stranger's wake.

From the half-open door of Neeley's Bar, children's laughter could be heard.


	3. Chapter 3

William wasn't wrong, the stranger did move fast. With the fog hampering his view, Walter was just lucky enough to see the stranger disappear inside a building at the top of Neeley street. Without paying any attention to his surroundings, Walter ran in after him.

And his heart sank.

It was a pet store. Empty cages decorated every available surface, their bars rusted and warped as if every animal had ripped and clawed their way out as violently as possible. The store was tiny, and although there was no sign of the stranger who had ran in, Walter could see that the lock had been forced on the fire exit.

Panic bloomed in Walter's brain and his vision darkened as black spots clouded his vision. Memories of Garland's pet store entered unbidden into his mind like flashes on a broken film reel; sepia toned and spotted.

_It's fine, it's fine. Garland is dead...I was just a kid. There's nothing to panic about. I need to get my backpack back._

'Fancy meeting you here,' drawled the child's voice from Neeley's Bar.

Walter jumped, bringing a hand to cling to his hair, tugging at the greasy strands.

'W-where...? How did you get here?' he stuttered, too tired from the panic attack to string together a cohesive sentence.

'I followed you, duh.'

Walter wasn't sure what he had done to make the voice hate him so much, was it that he had abandoned the child at the bar?

'I saw the man,' the voice's alternations between childish and mature speech was beginning to become unnerving, 'he went out the fire escape.'

'Well...thanks, I guess,' Walter felt no need to ask the voice to make its presence known, he had a sneaking suspicion he was going mad and was still asleep in the diner.

_Then again, _he thought, turning his flashlight on to survey the store, _stranger things in my life have happened._

The checkout was little more than a hand-made wooden desk and held little of use save a small bottle without a label. Walter vaguely recognised them as the health drinks Wish House used to make its children drink. Almost compulsively he pocketed it.

Nosiness satisfied, Walter turned to venture deeper into the store. Wherever the child had been hiding, he had appeared to have vanished. The very rear of the store seemed to be darker than when he had entered but he shook it off as a trick of his imagination. The Sisters at Wish House had always criticised him for his overactive imagination.

Walter was brought out of his reverie by a low hiss from the back corner of the store where the darkness seemed its thickest. The reverberating sound of tiny claws on the tiled floor heralded the appearance of the twisted specimen.

It resembled a cat, in the loosest sense. Its skin was a mottled black colour with green mould growing on the veined skin in patches in the sickening parody of fur. Its cycloptic eye was the size of a small plate, eerily bloodshot and rolling in its socket as if incapable of focusing on its prey. Its joints cracked and popped at right angles as the creature padded gently across the floor on disgusting human hands. It carried the darkness with it like a shroud, preventing Walter from making out much more than the barest of features.

He stood stock still, his brain incapable of processing the being that crouched before him. He had never witnessed something so twisted in his entire life. The creature let out another snake-like hiss before scrunching up its limbs and springing forward, attaching itself to Walter's middle.

Despite holding several murders to his name, Walter was essentially an ordinary man. He could confess to no special athletic feats, no inhumane reflexes. The creature leapt on to him with ease, knocking Walter back as it latched onto his malnourished frame. Walter snatched out a hand to steady himself from being knocked over completely, keeping a tight hold on the nape of the cat-creature's neck with the other. The Kitty's jaws snapped mere inches from his jugular and Walter's arm shook with the strain of keeping it from making contact with his neck. The hand that had reached out to steady himself made purchase with a cage door, the force of the Kitty's jump causing the pair to smash around and back into the wall of cages. The Kitty seemed to remember its claws and brought its hand up to Walter's face, clawing at the flesh of his cheek and raking down under his chin. Walter's arm felt ready to pop out of its socket as the Kitty managed to inch closer in his grasp, its jaws now millimeters from its target. Walter twisted his head to search for anything he could use as a weapon, his hand scrambling against the cages. As his arm threatened to go numb altogether, his other hand connected with a very familiar object.

His hand-axe.

It was embedded in the skull of a much smaller cat in one of the cages to his upper right, and if Walter had any time to think about this it would make him throw up. Using his last remaining strength he tugged the axe free from its sheath and swung it down home on the Kitty's neck. The blade was still mercifully sharp and it sunk into the rotten black flesh with little effort. The Kitty let loose a sickening feminine shriek, snapped its jaws once more, and went limp.

Walter's entire body shook from exhaustion as the Kitty's body slumped on top of his. While the thought of the creature touching him revolted him, he had no energy to shake off its body. He lay inertly on the floor for what felt like hours, the blood from the wound on his cheek gently dripped down onto his khaki-green top shirt, pooling in the collar.

Using the hand that wasn't beneath the creature, Walter fished out the health drink he had picked up from the counter. Unscrewing the cap with his teeth, he spat it onto the floor and guzzled from the bottle. It was emptied in seconds, the tangy taste of the thick liquid clinging to his throat and leaving a mild stinging sensation in its wake.

_Need to get moving..._

Walter heaved the Kitty from where it lay slumped over his left side, its fragile cranium cracking on the tile floor as it fell.

'_It is often the most vicious of beasts that are most fragile,'_ Father Stone used to preach. But Father Stone was dead now and Walter needed to get his Mother's hearts back.

Heaving himself onto his feet Walter checked himself over for any other injuries. His ankles smarted from the twisting fall and his elbow was scraped up a little but other than that he had suffered no other serious injuries. The cuts on his face had started to congeal, and having no items to clean himself up with Walter felt no need to prod at them any further.

His flashlight had survived the ordeal, though the beam seemed considerably dimmer than before the encounter. The darkness that had clung to the rear-end of the store had disappeared with the Kitty, allowing the pale-grey light from the streets to filter in through the windows.

_I should probably save the batteries,_ Walter decided and flicked the tiny switch off.

Tucking his axe into a belt-loop, Walter glanced behind him one last time at the Kitty's corpse before exiting the store through the fire escape.

Walter had never been so glad to be outside. Through his teenage years he had been struck down with a mild case of agoraphobia and dreaded the thought of having to step outside into the open world. It was shortly after that he had been forced to drop out of college and became homeless. The less he left his make-shift home in the Subway, the worse his agoraphobia become. His only comfort was the feeling of four solid walls, darkness and warmth only a building could afford.

Walter eased himself into a sitting position on the metal steps of the fire escape and considered his options. He felt agitated and nervy, his fingers unconsciously sought out his rag-doll in his pocket and just feeling the woolen hair brought his thudding heart to a calmer beat.

_Well I guess I can cross the pet store off the map._

Retrieving the biro from his pocket he balanced the map on his knee and scribbled out the corner of Neeley street where the pet store would be. He re-pocketed the map inadequately and rested his head in his hands. Once more, he had no idea where to go next.

_I can't just keep following some guy running about in this fog. He's faster than me and it seems he knows the area much better than I do._

But of course, in Silent Hill, if you ask you shall receive. Walter rubbed his face in his hands and looked up. There was a small notepad laid open meters away from where he sat. It certainly had not been there before.

Tentatively, Walter reached for the notepad as if afraid it would bite him. It was his own, the one he wrote his daily lists in. It had been in his backpack.

_1. Shower_

_2. Breakfast_

_3. Murder some kids_

'I never wrote that,' Walter yelped.

_4. Go apologise to Momma Locane_

Number 4 was outlined in the same red ink Neeley's Bar had been circled with on the map. Walter tugged out the map once more and immediately dropped it. A bright red 'x' now marked the rough location of the Locane house, just on the edge of Silent Hill Woods.

_But this map never left my pocket! What in the world is happening here?_

* * *

><p>It took a long time for Walter to calm his nerves enough to start moving again.<p>

The easiest way to get back to the Locane's house was to get onto Nathan avenue and head to the woods from the small nature trail that connected to the end of Vachss Road. It would be a long trip on foot but Walter couldn't drive. None of the cars he had seen parked along the streets seemed roadworthy even if he did know how to hot-wire a car.

The beginning of his journey was met with failure before it had even began. Turning the corner onto Nathan Ave., Walter was met with a giant concrete wall.

'W-what on earth?'

The wall was solid concrete, and it ate into the surrounding buildings. There was no getting past it and the smooth surface would make climbing impossible even if Walter did possess the upper body strength.

_Guess I'll just have to head back down onto Neeley and loop around and past the wall._

Quickly marking the blockade on his map and turning back down onto Neeley, Walter's world was thrown upside down once more. The street he had walked down only half an hour earlier had disappeared; a gaping maw in its wake. The fog obscured the rest of the street. It was as if Neeley Street didn't exist at all.

Stranger still, to the left of him was an alleyway he could have sworn was a solid building just moments ago.

_I guess I'm supposed to go this way, then..._

Flicking his flashlight back on, the small beam provided just enough light to see by. The alleyway was narrow, and the small dark space provided Walter with small comfort. His steady footfalls sounded like a heartbeat; Walter had oddly never felt so at home. The alleyway was only six feet long, and ended with a small red door. The key was already in the lock.

Opening the door led Walter into an office room. There was a map on the notice board.

_This building is the Fire Station on Nathan? _

Indeed it was. Walter would eventually get used to Silent Hill's ways of bending and twisting time and space, but for now he remained wholly unnerved.

_That alley way was only six feet long. There's no way I could have gotten into the second floor offices from the ground floor._

There was a typewriter sat on the desk, a crisp white sheet of paper still inside. Walter tugged it out gently.

_Hank,_

_The lock on the front door seems to be busted again._

_I've had to lock it shut with a chain for tonight but can you look at it tomorrow?_

_The code is (smudge)._

_Use the side door until then._

_I've left clues around the place if you forget._

_Lindsey._

Next to the type writer was a small stone decorative plate. It felt heavy in Walter's hand. The front was delicately carved, the image a demonic creature straight out of Christian folklore. It seemed to be pleading, its eyes burrowing into Walter's. On the back was an inscription.

'_Hell hath no limits,_

_nor is circumscribed_

_In one self-place; for where we are is hell_

_And where hell is, there must we ever be.'_

_5._

Walter hurriedly scribbled the inscription into his notebook. He recognised the passage but he couldn't quite place where he had heard it before.

_I guess the five must be the first clue. Lindsey must have had a lot of time on her hands to put all this together._

There was nothing else of use in the office and the plate would be too large and heavy to carry with him so he left it on the desk. According to the map, he was in the Secretary's Office on the second floor. The Station was horse-shoe shaped to accommodate for the Engine room on the ground floor. The first floor consisted of living quarters for the firefighters and the bottom floor was the engine room and public front desk.

The corridor outside the office was silent. Whatever was scaring away the tourists seemed to have spooked even the fire fighters.

_If there are other monsters like that cat thing, no wonder everyone is laying low. If they're even still in town..._

The remaining offices on the second floor were all locked; Walter marked these doors accordingly with squiggly lines on the small map.

The stairwell doors were thankfully open. The lack of windows in the stairwell caused it to grow progressively darker from the second floor, causing the stairs to appear an endless abyss. It reminded him of an old story the older children at Wish House used to tell the younger kids about the well in the courtyard. Once a little boy leant in too far and fell down the well; they never heard the splash. Rumour had it you would just fall forever.

Suppressing a shudder, Walter angled his flashlight to look down the stairwell to check how far down the stairs actually went. His flashlight barely illuminated the bottom.

_'Hell hath no limits' indeed..._

It was only two flights of stairs down to the first floor. Looking back up the staircase, he found that he could now no longer see where he had come from, despite the second floor being reasonably well lit. Not giving himself a chance to panic over the strangeness, Walter grabbed the handle for the door to the first floor.

It was locked.

For the second time in one day Walter swore to himself. This place was testing his patience.

Marking the door as locked on his map, he proceeded on down the remaining steps to the ground floor. The double doors, although heavy, were unlocked, though Walter had to shoulder the door open. The hinges of the door were rusted beyond repair.

_I can understand a bar being a little unkempt, but a government building? What's going on here?_

According to the map, the ground floor held the recreation and staff rooms, a first aid room, the front desk and the engine room. Standing at the end of the murky corridor, Walter couldn't help but shake the sickening feeling that someone was watching him. His little flashlight valiantly shone into the short distance in front of him and Walter was confident that if something were in the building with him that he would at least get a look at it before it got him.

_Hopefully._

Walter tried the first door he found and with a shove it was open. Like the stairwell door the hinges were heavily rusted. The room was large, a window on the outer wall letting in more light than the corridor. The room was full of sofas and a couple of televisions; the rec. room for the firefighters between calls. Everything was coated with a fine layer of dust and there were rotten cartons of take-out chinese strewn on the small coffee table. Walter's stomach flipped as a beautifully fat white maggot plopped out of a carton of old chow-mein.

Further exploration of the recreation room yielded a health drink from a broken mini-fridge and another memo:

_Engine 1's key has gone missing from the Chief's office, has Peterson left it in his pants pocket again?_

Walter tucked the yellow post-it with the other notes he had picked up into his notebook. The axe in his belt-loop grazed lightly against his stomach, the thick material of his shirt keeping it from doing any damage to his skin. Its blade was still coated with the sticky brown blood of the Kitty creature. Walter sincerely hoped he would not have to use it again.

_Killing for Mother is one thing, but I don't know if I'll survive another surprise attack from a 'monster.' _

At the very end of the rec. room was a small rucksack. For a split moment, Walter was hopeful that it was his. On closer inspection, it seemed to belong to a child. Inside the rucksack was another stone plate.

_'__Ah (_e_), _

_Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, _

_And then thou must be damned perpetually. _

_. . . _

_The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,_

_The devil will come, and (_l_) must be damned.'_

_13._

This plate was decorated with the image of a man who held his head in his hands as if in despair. Flicking his flashlight on again to give himself more light to write by, Walter jotted down the plate's inscription and number in his notebook before marking the position of the plate on his map. Carefully placing the plate back inside the rucksack, he tucked the bag into the corner of the room and turned. To the right of him was a door marked 'STAFF'. The window of the door was covered in grime and the handle was corroded and black. Tentatively opening the door with as little contact with the handle as possible, Walter eased the door open. It was the only door he had encountered in the fire station that wasn't rusted to disrepair.

The staff room held little of interest to Walter and he instead moved on to the door at the other end of the room marked 'CHIEF'. Thanking Mother as the door swung open, Walter was confronted with a sight that made him dry heave into the potted plant by the door.

A hideously decayed corpse wearing a rotten parody of the Silent Hill Fire-fighter's uniform sat at the Chief's desk, rigor-mortis forcing it to bear its weight on its elbows in the grim image of a man at business.

In the corpse's hand was a key ring proclaiming 'FIRST FLOOR'. Its palm was wide open; inviting him to just take the key. Walter couldn't shake the fear that it would snap his hand in its grip if he took it.

_I need that key to check for Lindsey's clues, if what she said about the front door is true._

Taking several deep breaths, Walter snatched the key from the corpse's hand. It didn't move.

With the putrid stench of the dead Chief becoming overwhelming in the cramped closed office, Walter chose to leave rather than to explore further. Checking his map, he decided to head on back out into the corridor and toward the front desk to double check the front door. As he back-tracked through the dim rooms he couldn't help but once again feel as if he were being watched.

_But not by a person. It's like the town itself is looking at me. _

Shaking his head at the ridiculous thought Walter finally stepped back out into the dark corridor. Checking his map once more, he headed down the corridor and turned right until he reached the room marked 'HELP DESK.'

Inside was a desk that took up half the small room. Lifting up a small portion of the desk allowed Walter to enter the public side of the room. The entire front wall was grubby glass and the grey light flooded into the room.

_The fog seems heavier than before._ _Must be from the lake. _

Unfortunately for Walter, whose minimum luck in life seemed to have all but abandoned him, Lindsey was true to her word. The front door had been chained shut with an industrial grade chain; easily as thick as his own bony wrist. Keeping the chain together was a heavy padlock with four number slots. Above the chain was an inscription painted sloppily on the top of the door:

_'Now remember child;_

_The heavens come before a fall_

_and the egotist comes before the sinner.'_

_What on earth does that even mean? Couldn't Lindsey have just done a fucking crossword puzzle or something? _Walter tensed his jaw in exasperation, hoping his new found potty-mouth wouldn't become a habit. He still remembered what the Sisters did to the older boys who swore.

Poking at the crumbled molar in thought, Walter considered his options. Walking back around the desk to sit in the tattered office chair, he pulled out his notebook and checked over his notes.

_So the first two plates had pictures as well as inscriptions on them. Number 5 was a weird devil thing, whereas number 13 was a sad looking man. Could the weird riddle thing on the door be the order I'm supposed to input the numbers? Who would even organise such a thing?_

Pulling out his map, Walter checked where else he could explore. The only thing left on the ground floor was the engine room, but he had checked that briefly on the way down to the Help Desk and the door appeared to be locked.

_Didn't I pick up a memo about Engine 1? Maybe I should head upstairs and see if I could find the key._

Tucking away his notepad and map and double checking the sturdiness of his axe in his belt-loop, Walter exited the Help Desk and started the long journey back to the stairwell and up to the first floor. Using his newly acquired key, the door opened with ease. The fire-stations living quarters were split into Male and Female Bunks. The door to the Male Bunk was broken; the door clunking in its hinges as Walter rattled it. Crossing it off of his map, Walter proceeded down the corridor to the Female Bunk. Unease clattered in the back of his mind with every step he took closer to the room.

The door was unlocked. The hissing static of a broken radio poured out into the corridor.

'Huh? Who would have left this here?'

Walter moved into the room to inspect the small brown box that lay unsuspectingly on an unmade bunk bed. He turned it in hands to try and find a way to turn down the volume as it continued to spit white noise into the dark room. No matter what button he pressed or dial he turned the noise only got louder and louder until it began to resemble an ear-piercing shriek.

The room had suddenly become very dark.

Whirling to check behind him Walter came face to face with a towering skeletal figure. The Banshee's fingers clicked like knives as it twitched them in nervous excitement. Its face was shrouded in what appeared to be yellowed lace. Its twisted jaw jutted out from just beneath the shroud revealing a toothless maw opened in a perpetual scream. The shrieking sound from its mouth threatened to deafen Walter as he dropped the radio to the floor and clapped his hands to his ears.

The Banshee floated down from the ceiling carrying with it the same dark smog that had surrounded the Kitty back at the pet store. An immense pressure built up in Walter's skull and he felt as if his eyes were going to pop out of his skull.

Dropping his hands from his ears Walter fumbled for the axe in his belt, but he couldn't co-ordinate his fingers and the axe fell out of his limp hands and under the bunk bed. Walter's teeth shook in his mouth and the infected molar crumbled further as he grit his jaw in pain. Falling to his knees, Walter's vision began to blur as tears dripped down his cheeks and blood vessels popped in his eyes. The Banshee was close now, he could feel its sour breath on his face. Scrabbling around him in vain to find his axe, his hand bumped into something cold and metallic.

It was a handgun.

The Banshee was now directly in front of him. It hovered above him, shrieking like a siren. It was fully distracted by its wounded prey, unprepared when Walter sent the first bullet into its torso. Walter had never had any formal training with firearms and was thankful that the bullet had at least hit its target. The howling wail trailed off slightly as the Banshee was caught off guard and Walter used this opportunity to fire again; the bullet sailing the short distance between them and hitting the Banshee in the chest.

The Banshee let out one last clamoring yell before dropping to the floor, blackish blood pooling underneath it as it squirmed and writhed on the floor. Walter scrambled to his feet and stomped on its head with his steel-toed boot. Both the Banshee and the radio finally fell silent.

Walter stumbled back against the bunk bed uneasily. His head was swimming and he was sure blood was dripping from his ears. His rotten teeth hurt from tensing his jaw and the action had caused him to re-open the scratches on his face. Rooting in his pockets he retrieved the health drink he had found in the rec. room and sipped it carefully, the thick liquid stinging his aching gums.

Walter picked up the now silent radio off of the floor. No matter how much he fiddled with it he couldn't get it to pick up any type of frequency, and opening the battery compartment revealed it to be empty.

_How on earth was this thing ever working? Was it something to do with that thing?_

Like the flashlight, the radio could also be attached to his clothing via a small clip. Attaching it to the other side of his belt, Walter stood up and began to search the room. It was sparcely furnished, holding little more than several bunk-beds and storage. A chest of drawers on the far opposite wall was open, another stone plate sitting inside.

_'__If we say that we have no sin, _

_We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us. _

_Why then belike we must sin, _

_And so consequently die.'_

_1._

This plate was engraved with the male figure reading from a large book. If Walter didn't know any better, he would swear the figure seemed to be pacing.

_These quotes...I know them from somewhere. Why can't I remember?_

Quickly jotting down the inscription and number, Walter headed into the bathroom. The en-suite shower room was covered in mildew and the air was moist and thick. A box of handgun ammo sat in the plug hole of the communal shower, the corners of the box sodden. Double checking the contents, from his limited knowledge Walter deemed the bullets usable and re-loaded his handgun.

_Not enough room to carry the last few of bullets with me, I'll have to leave them here. _

Walter headed back into the bunk room and retrieved his axe from where it had fallen under the bed. Once again marking the position of the tablet on his map, Walter headed back out into the corridor. There was a locker room on the opposite corridor and Walter remembered the memo mentioning something about someone called Peterson leaving the Engine key in his pants pocket. With any luck he might find it there.

The locker room was devoid of any signs of life, leaving Walter to the tedious task of checking every locker in the room. There were five double sided rows of lockers, over half of them locked or broken. Walter found a health drink and a couple of rolls of bandages in the few lockers that weren't empty and a holster for his handgun. Just as he was losing his patience he stumbled across a locker with a tattered black and yellow uniform hung inside. The name badge read Peterson. Rummaging through the pockets he was rewarded with a drivers key marked Engine 1.

_I can't wait to get out of this place. I don't think I'll ever find that guy, he could be anywhere by now._

Taking a moment to sit on one of the wooden benches that lined the locker room Walter double checked his notebook. The riddle on the front door was itching in the back of his brain; despite getting into college, Walter had never been particularly academic and ridiculous riddles were well beyond his mental capacity.

_Guess it's time to check out Engine 1. I've been everywhere else I can go, the last plate's gotta be there._

Leaving the Locker room, Walter was dreading the re-track back downstairs. From his memory the door to the engine room had sounded broken when he had tried it on his trip down the ground floor. As he rounded the corner, he noticed that something had changed about the corridor.

Where there had once been another locked door there was now a hole. The debris scattered on the floor suggested to Walter that the damage had been recent.

_Is someone in here? Is it another one of those things?_

Removing his newly acquired handgun from its holster, Walter aimed it crookedly at the newly opened passage. When nothing flew out at him and the radio remained silent Walter lowed his weapon and inspected the hole.

It was three feet tall and barely a foot wide, leaving Walter to stoop slightly to get a good look. His flashlight beam was inadequate here and he couldn't see to the bottom of the hole at all. A slick gleaming metallic fireman's pole hung from an unseen point in the ceiling.

_Looks like it should take me into the Engine room. _

Double checking the security of his flashlight and radio and wishing not for the first time today that he had better upper body strength, Walter awkwardly wrapped his hands around the pole and swung his legs into a haphazard imitation of the very same firemen who in another place who used the same pole daily. His poor stance on the pole made his descent very clumsy but eventually he shimmied his way down into the Engine room.

The Engine room was pitch black, the tools that lined the walls casting eerie shadows as Walter passed his flashlight over them. The ceiling was non-existant from the ground floor and the vast space sent shivers down Walter's spine.

The red engines stood proudly toward the front of the cavernous room, both labelled with a large bright yellow number. Engine 1 sat to the left of its twin, its paintwork dull and scratched. Using the Engine 1-key Walter hauled himself inside the rear of the vehicle. Just like the movies, it was lined with padded seats. Unlike the movies, the far left seat was drenched with blood. In the centre of the smear was the last stone plate.

_'What doctrine call you this, Che serà, serà:_

_What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu!'_

_0._

The final plate was inscribed with the image of the same man from the other two plates embracing the devil creature from the very first. Jotting the last quote and number in his notepad, Walter hurried out of the vehicle. Walter had always taken a perverse pleasure from the smell of blood; fresh blood; finding it here in a locked fire-truck in a practically inaccessible room was more panic than his brain could handle.

The culprit remained invisible for the rest of Walter's trip back down the corridor toward the Help Desk.

_So if the heavens come before a fall, and the egotist before the sinner, then the combination is 13/5/1/0?_

Twisting the tiny wheels on the padlock, Walter entered his guess. The padlock clicked open, and Walter wasted no time scrabbling to remove the chain from the door.

_Those quotes...I think I remember now. _

_It was back in College. My first week, I walked into the wrong classroom, but something compelled me to stay. 'Demonology in Literature.' It's where I first met that annoying kid with the stammer and his lackeys. Those quotations were from a play...where the cocky doctor willingly sells his soul to the devil and ignores all chance at redemption. _

_Now I think about it, all those plates were specifically about his ambivalence towards being saved or remaining damned._

_Was this aimed at me? Or am I just being paranoid?_

The door swung open and Walter savored the feeling of fresh air. It was still unnaturally chilly for July and the heavy fog prevented Walter from seeing much further than a foot in front of him. He was beginning to feel disorientated by being restricted visually, both by the fog and his feeble flashlight. It was all very unnerving.

_It should be about a fourty minute walk back to the Locane's from here. I just hope I don't get lost in this fog. It seems to have gotten darker too. How long was I traipsing about the stupid building for?_

Walter checked the red 'x' on the map again, satisfied that it was definitely the location of the Locane house. As he strode down Nathan toward Vachss, it seemed to grow darker and darker every passing minute and Walter thought he could hear the faint sound of a air-raid siren from somewhere back in town.

_W-what?_

Walter stopped, bewildered, as the world around him began to shake and reform. It was as if God herself was reaching down and changing the landscape of the town like a child knocking down a sandcastle. The road began to crumble as the buildings lining Nathan detached, speeding back into the nothingness that began to close on in the street. It seemed to Walter as if something had seized the buildings and pulled them back, they disappeared so fast. Dropping to his knees from the force of the juddering road, Walter clung to the remaining sides of the road as he gazed into the chasm that had opened up in the buildings wake. He was stuck on a walkway, the gloom closing around him. The air grew colder and colder until Walter felt as if he had been plunged in sea of ice. He could hear whispers all around him and it took all of his willpower to command his frozen fingers to turn on his flashlight. Holding it out in front of him in an attempt to see further, Walter almost dropped it when its beam lay on the source of the sound.

_People?_

The shadowed figures of a wall of people stood at the far end of Nathan Ave., pointing and whispering at Walter. They did not shy away from his flashlight, merely intensifying the rate at which the chittered to one another.

_Like insects._

Walter began to run.

He ran along the narrowing road until his lungs began to burn and the blood in his veins turned to battery acid. He could hear the whispers of the Horde behind him, buzzing like beetles wings. With the cavernous space surrounding him there were no longer any landmarks for which Walter could mark how far he had come. He was sure that at the rate he had been running that he should at least of come to the junction between Lindsey and Nathan, meaning the small track he wanted to take would be coming up to his left soon.

Chest heaving with the exhaustion Walter was forced to slow his run to a painful trot. Though he could still hear the Horde chasing after him they seemed to remain at a distance, even as Walter slowed. It seemed an eternity before Walter spotted the path; now little more than rocky steps floating in the nothingness.

_There's no other way around. I don't want those things to catch me. I've got to do this, for Mother._

Walter took a tiny hop down onto the first step. It remained sturdy despite its lack of grounding. The Horde's excited chatter grew louder with every step he jumped onto until he finally reached the level ground at the bottom. It was even colder here, and any warmth his body had stored during his run was instantly sucked out of him and into the nothingness.

The Horde stayed on the edge of Nathan Ave., now silent. The quiet unnerved Walter more than their whispers. It was a pure silence; no wind, no birds. Even the sound of his breathing seemed to vanish, sucked into the nothingness. Content that the Horde were not going to pursue him down the steps, Walter continued down the graveled path. This path meant that he could bypass the graveyard; he dreaded to think of what horrors he would find there. Instead, he would take the route he had used just hours earlier to get back into the woods and to the Locane's house, a small path used primarily by nature walkers which had long since become overgrown.

The trees of Silent Hill woods slowly became visible as Walter followed the path. The silence felt ever thicker here, and Walter's ears rang, unused to the pure silence. The area was virtually unrecognizable, the trees had become gnarled hunks of metal; lithe and razor-sharp. The Locane's modest house sat in a barren circle, looking completely out of place in the twisted nightmare Silent Hill had become.

_What is going on here?_

**A/N**

**I just re-read the Sullivan Files and realised they already explained what happened to Billy and Miriam. Oh well, I'm just glad this is fanfiction. Ahem.**

**Longest chapter so far! I just couldn't seem to find a good place to cut it. I got my info for the Pet Store and Fire Station from the Silent Hill Interactive Map which I cannot praise enough! I felt like taking Walter somewhere original, and unfortunately I can confirm that I won't be sending him through a hospital level at any stage.**

**In regards to Walter's internal monologues, I was trying to invoke a similar feeling to how the characters in the game talk when you make them inspect things, if that makes sense? I just feel that it would be unrealistic for him to blurt all of these things aloud when there's no-one to hear him.**

**Well I hope that everyone enjoyed this chapter! I realise some things make no sense which I can only apologise for as I evidently did not do my full research regarding secondary sources (can't you tell I'm a student?). Thanks for reading!**

**Next time on Silent Hill Shore - Walter gets more than he bargained for when he explores the Locane House. Momma Locane is a grenade, literally. **


End file.
